RIM and T-Mobile have reportedly scheduled an event on March 15 to highlight "the latest and greatest T-Mobile BlackBerry technology." The invitation does not shed light on a specific device, however it does highlight BlackBerry OS 7 alongside the vague "What's Next" tagline.
A staff memo has leaked plans for AT&T to hike its device upgrade fee. The BGR copy had the cost jumping from $18 to $36. The cost was allegedly necessary because the "overall costs" for upgrading to a new device had gone up, AT&T said.
Nokia has told Astound smartphone owners that they won't be upgraded to the latest Symbian OS release, Belle. Apart from thanking owners for their patience, it didn't say more. Its international equivalent, the C7, is getting the new version.
AT&T and Verizon have reportedly lobbied to deregulate spectrum auctions and reduce the Federal Communication Commission's role in managing spectrum allocation between carriers. The companies are accused of pushing legislators to add a special provision to the JOBS Act (PDF) that would bar the FCC from excluding a company from bidding.
T-Mobile has announced that its entire range of phones, and a number of tablets, will be offered for free during a one-day promotion on Saturday, February 11. The "Valentine's Day Sale" applies to smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S II, BlackBerry Bold 9900, HTC Amaze 4G and Nokia Lumia 710, along with the SpringBoard tablet and the Sonic 4G hotspot.
Nokia has acknowledged that it has a problem with its Lumia 710 smartphone. Users are finding that the phone indicates that they are still staying connected even after the call has ended. Nokia has reassured owners that the problem is a display issue and is working to resolve it.
A scoop Tuesday had the Nokia Lumia 800 reaching the US in an official capacity, but with conditions. A source for The Verge had Nokia's first Windows Phone coming to the US through Microsoft Stores as part of a bundle. The pack would include both an unlocked Lumia 800 as well as a Play 360 Bluetooth speaker and a Purity HD stereo headphone set.
Yet another unannounced Samsung device appears to have made its way through FCC testing. The handset, which is referred to by the model code SGH-T769, has been approved for GSM bands and the WCDMA bands that T-Mobile utilizes for its 4G network.
Despite at one time offering a $300 lifetime subscription deal for its Peek Twitter and text messaging handhelds, users reported that their service was cut abruptly on January 30. Some did receive e-mails warning them of the stoppage, and Peek CEO Amol Sarva confirmed service for the devices has ended. The products, such as the Peek 9 that added e-mail to its list of capabilities, used T-Mobile's 2G network for their connection to the web.
Apple and AT&T are leading computer and phone support in conditions that are still on the decline, Vocalabs found in a pair of studies of phone help quality. Apple was still out in front by a significant margin in computers, with 54 percent very satisfied to 49 percent of HP owners and 44 at Dell. The figure for Mac help was still down a full 19 points from the first half of 2010, however, where Dell and HP had always been at their lower levels.
T-Mobile has now begun selling the Square mobile readers to business owners. In mid-December, the carrier began offering the hardware in a limited-time promo. The carrier is the first to sell the hardware directly, though it's available at less than 100 stores across the nation.
Following its failed attempt to acquire T-Mobile, AT&T has begun a reorganization of its leadership, according to Reuters. The changes have seen experienced, longs-serving AT&T executives promoted. 27-year veteran John Stankey has been put in charge of strategy, while Forrest Miller, the current head of corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions is retiring after 30 years. The company also said that 32-year company man Andy Geisse will head up the business segment, and and John Donovan will take over duties leading the AT&T’s technology and network operations.
T-Mobile will soon phase out a number of Android smartphones, with a couple of fairly new ones among them. The list comes from an inventory screen capture shared by TMoNews. The handsets reaching their end-of-life status include the HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Amaze 4G, LG DoublePlay, LG myTouch Q and LG myTouch.
T-Mobile UK has revived the idea of unlimited plans in the country with new Full Monty plans that involve a two-year contract. They all provide unlimited data and text messages. Most of the plans aren't truly unlimited, however, as the entry-level, £36 (about $57) per month option offers 2,000 minutes to non-subscribers.
A leaked memo shared online by TmoNews reveals T-Mobile will change its attitude toward its subscribers who use unlocked iPhones on their network. When the iPhone owners call in, T-Mobile staffers are being instructed to handle common procedures. These include information about features and specifications and other basic device questions.
T-Mobile's vice president of federal regulatory affairs, Kathleen Ham, has issued a statement calling for the FCC to establish tighter rules for spectrum auctions. As a former FCC auctions division chief, Ham argues that pending congressional legislation and the "newfound distrust" in the FCC may push smaller companies out of the spectrum auctions.
AT&T on Thursday marked very mixed results from its fall quarter that were partly self-inflicted. The season marked its best ever for smartphones, owed primarily to the iPhone 4S launch. About 7.6 million iPhones were activated out of the 9.4 million smartphones sold, making Apple's platform 80 percent of AT&T's customer base.
A leaked strategy document from T-Mobile has shown TMoNews that the carrier is actively trying to discourage the large number of unlocked iPhones on its network. Incorrectly referring to the devices at the "iPhone 4G" and "4G S," the staff memo insists that T-Mobile users are getting a "poor" experience by being on the carrier's EDGE (2G) network. Moving to one of its '4G' phones like the HTC Amaze 4G or Radar 4G will be free them from being "stuck in the 2G slow lane" with Apple's device.
AT&T following a promise it made as a condition of its since-dropped takeover of T-Mobile has jointly filed with T-Mobile to transfer some of its wireless spectrum. The deal will give about $1 billion in frequency licenses to T-Mobile in accordance with terms AT&T agreed to in the even the deal failed. T-Mobile is expected to use the space to fill out coverage and overcome a deficit it has relative to other major US carriers.
The Xperia ion introduced at CES has just got its first price tag, thanks to Negri Electronics. The third-party outfit is listing an unlocked device for just short of $570. The pre-order doesn't include a shipping date, however.
Carrier T-Mobile will soon have a limited-time offer of Unlimited Premium 5GB and 10GB data plans, if the leaked memo shared by TMoNews proves true. The deals are due to go live on January 25 and include the Smartphone Mobile Hotspot and MobileLife Album Plus services, which usually cost $15 and $5 per month, respectively. Apparently, however, the company won't actively promote this deal.
The LG Prada phone 3.0 will soon arrive at T-Mobile UK, the carrier revealed. The date is sometime in February, though no other details were given. Third-party vendor already offers the handset with contracts through Vodafone and Orange starting at £31 (about $48) per month without a fee for the handset, so T-Mobile UK's price should be similar.
Dish in responses to speculation has said it's open to deals that might see a carrier deal. CEO Joe Clayton disclosed to Bloomberg late last week that the company "could be acquired or... could be the acquirer" and was willing to entertain options. While a spokesman wouldn't address speculation about carrier acqusitions, Clayton had previously remarked that Dish would be willing to talk to T-Mobile and possibly other carriers.
LG took its second shot at tablets in an unusual post-CES launch with the Optimus Pad LTE. A direct sequel to the original we reviewed, it keeps the 8.9-inch, 1280x768 IPS screen and jumps to its namesake 4G for Internet access. Added speed comes through a platform switch, with LG moving from the dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 to a similarly dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon.
HTC has added six phones to its list of phones which support the vendor's bootloader unlock tool. With it, savvy users and developers can load a modified version of the Android OS firmware that gives them the interface or app control they wanted. The smartphones added to the compatibility list for the tool include the Aria, ChaCha and its Status counterpart, the Desire Z and its T-Mobile G2 equivalent, and the Droid Incredible.
Walmart and T-Mobile have just added unlimited data to Walmart's Family Mobile plans. They already include unlimited talk and text, and retain the same monthly price points of $45 for the first line and $35 for additional lines. Previously, the family plans included just 250MB of shared web access.
Nokia's Lumia 900 might have only a short exclusive period on AT&T and an upgrade before it's out of the market. A rumor floated on Sunday to recently accurate Paul Thurrott had AT&T getting just 45 days' lead time before other US carriers were free to pick it up. They would still have to negotiate, the source from a rival carrier said, but a summer release was considered realistic.
A recent update for the HTC Evo 3D handset has removed the controversial Carrier IQ software, users over on the Android Central forum have found. The update was expected, and backs Sprint's earlier statement that it will back off from actively using the app. The HTC IQAgent and IQRD apps are now showing up as 0KB in the Manage Applications screen.
Nokia has begun promoting its two newest smartphones, the Lumia 900 and Lumia 710. Both phones, Nokia's first with Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, are featured on YouTube videos. Nokia has already started pushing the Lumia 710 with the same video as a 30-second TV spot.
ViewSonic gave us a quick look at its upcoming hardware at the CES show. This included the 10-inch ViewPad 10e and dual-booting 10pi and 7-inch E70 Android tablets and ViewPhone 3. The phone will cost $280 and be unlocked when it ships in March, supporting AT&T and T-Mobile networks.
T-Mobile USA CTO Neville Ray provided a potentially major clue to a possible iPhone deal in an interview late Tuesday. He divulged to CNET that he had seen Apple's cellular chipset roadmap and that the next chipset would support AWS (Advanced Wireless Spectrum), or the 1,700MHz band that T-Mobile needs for its HSPA+ 3G network. While cautioning that no deal was guaranteed, he made it clear that the company's most often cited obstacle was now just temporary.
T-Mobile in a surprise step has teased another variant on the Galaxy line. The Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G will have the dual-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 of the current version, but it will build on the Galaxy S II to bring 42Mbps HSPA+ speeds. Android 2.3 looks to still be standard.
ViewSonic has stated that it will launch its first US smartphone. The ViewPhone 3, Forbes was told, occupies the budget end of the smartphone space with a 3.5-inch screen, an 800MHz Snapdragon processor, 3G, a five-megapixel camera, and a light 512MB of RAM. Android 2.3 ships with a customized interface.
The iPhone 4S held off the Galaxy Nexus for the top spot in smartphones on Verizon, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley found through channel checks. Apple's newest phone still had the top sales spot on every major US carrier that sells it in December, keeping the first Android 4.0 phone at second place. As before, the only carrier where Apple didn't lead was T-Mobile, where it doesn't participate.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse in his Citi conference remarks revealed that Sprint was throttling some of its cellular users. While the plans are technically unlimited, the top one percent of users are slowed down. He suggested that Sprint could "knock them off" if they truly misused the data, but it wasn't clear this had ever happened or was an active policy.
Sprint chief Dan Hesse during his stint at the Citi media and telecoms conference confirmed the first cities for the carrier's LTE rollout. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio will all get the faster 4G. These and six other areas will be covered by mid-2012.
AT&T's Business Solutions chief John Stankey at Citi's ongoing media and telecoms conference confirmed that the carrier had switched on LTE-based 4G access in 11 areas over the holidays. New York City's core, San Francisco, San Jose, Austin, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, and San Diego all now have the more authentically 4G Internet access. The faster coverage should be finished by the end of 2013, Stankey said.
The Nokia Ace has had some of its few remaining details hashed out in a leak Tuesday. Now known by PocketNow to be one and the same as the Lumia 900, the AT&T version of the Windows Phone as mocked up would largely be an upsized version of the Lumia 800 with LTE for 4G. It's believed to have 1,700MHz 3G support that could let it run on T-Mobile 3G for those who buy unlocked.
Carrier T-Mobile will hold a New Year, New Phone Sale this weekend. The available devices include the Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Amaze 4G, T-Mobile G-Slate, T-Mobile Springboard and Sonic 4G mobile hotspot, all for between free or up to $50, albeit after a mail-in rebate. Each phone requires a new two-year contract with a T-Mobile Unlimited Value plan.
US Regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Deutsche Telekom, a Hungarian unit and three former executives in a corruption case, according to a Thursday report. The charges include bribery of government officials in Macedonia and Montenegro dating back to 2005 and 2006, with the activities made public in 2010. Magyar Telekom, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, allegedly gave Macedonian officials 4.88 million euros (about $6.3 million) disguised as consulting and marketing contracts in order to keep a rival out of the market.
Quickly coming on the heels of the HTC Radiant and Samsung Mandel leaks, a second potential scoop may have filled in considerably more detail with US launch plans. Windows-focused writer Paul Thurott understood that the Mendel and Radiant would be joined by the Nokia Ace, likely the Lumia 900, on AT&T. All three would have LTE-based 4G and ship before mid-2012, with an introduction at the AT&T and Nokia events at CES.
Owners unhappy with the selection of hardware in HTC's bootloader unlocking program have developed their own unofficial solution. HTC Super Tool on the XDA-Developers forums both unlocks the bootloader and roots devices whether or not they're part of HTC's plans. Along with the Evo and Sensation models, it also unlocks the T-Mobile G2, Inspire 4G, and multiple myTouch models.
LG in an update gave a long timetable for its Android 4.0 upgrades. The first releases will only start in the spring, or no sooner than April, with the Optimus LTE, Prada Phone by LG 3.0, Optimus 2X, Optimus Sol, myTouch Q, and Eclipse getting updates that season. Some phones won't get their updates until the summer, including the Optimus 3D, Optimus Black, Optimus Big, Optimus Q2, and Optimus EX.
The Federal Communications Commission has quickly acted on its promise to reexamine AT&T's purchase of Qualcomm spectrum by approving the deal on Thursday. A three-to-one vote will give AT&T the 700MHz frequencies that Qualcomm was using on its short-lived Flo TV service. AT&T will primarily have to guarantee against interference and allow roaming from phones and tablets on rival networks.
T-Mobile sent a letter to US Senator Al Franken that confessed the carrier preloaded Carrier IQ software on 450,000 Android and BlackBerry handsets, confirming the leaked memo. In the letter, T-Mobile said it was a limited version of the IQ Agent that can only collect data for individual device troubleshooting purposes, unlike competitors AT&T and Sprint. It also doesn't use the Mobile Service Intelligence Platform to use handsets and users as unsolicited focus groups, according to the claim, unlike the other two.
The Department of Justice on Tuesday said it was investigating Verizon's plans to buy cable companies' wireless spectrum. The agency was investigating whether or not taking the usually 1,700MHz space from Bright House, Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable raised competitive problems. Officials are reportedly concerned that the deal amounted to collusion rather than fostering competition.
T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom in new details surrounding its roaming deal with AT&T has suggested it may get much more coverage than today. A seven-year pact with the carrier will give it not just licenses for Advanced Wireless Spectrum bands (usually 1,700MHz) in 128 markets but should also let T-Mobile use AT&T's existing 3G network. The step would give it access to the same 850MHz and 1,900MHz bands and theoretically allow iPhones or other devices to connect freely without or alongside T-Mobile's regular AWS bands.
AT&T on Monday said it planned to drop its attempt to buy T-Mobile. Citing opposition from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, it decided to enter a "mutually beneficial" roaming deal with T-Mobile to share each other's capacity. AT&T would pay its promised $4 billion in combined breakup fees to T-Mobile in response to the failed deal.
AT&T isn't making any progress in its attempts to sell T-Mobile assets to rescue its attempted buyout of T-Mobile, insiders uncovered Sunday. Discussions with smaller carriers have reportedly "gone cold," the Wall Street Journal heard. Among other problems, attempts to sell assets to Leap for its Cricket service fell as doubts existed that even this could salvage AT&T's proposed T-Mobile merger.
The Lumia 800 represents more than just a radical break from the past for Nokia; in many ways, it's the company's entire future. As its first Windows Phone device, it's not just a switch to a much more modern platform but a clue as to whether or not Nokia can still stand out in an era when iPhones and Android smartphones are taking over. Our review of the Lumia 800 will answer that -- and whether or not it might just be the best Windows Phone on the market.
